Prevalence of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, and Their Virulence Genes in Adulterated Meat Products

Abstract

Meat product adulteration is a prevalent issue that has been a significant concern for humanity as it reduces the quality of food by either adding low-quality nutrients or removing useful components from it, which can affect consumers who rely on meat as a primary source of these nutrients. Food adulteration can be intentional (for the financial benefit of producers, processors, and retailers), or incidental (happens during production, handling, and storage). This study used the sensitive and specific polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique to identify the various meat species in meat products marketed as 100% beef and sold in Aswan City, Egypt, with distinct microbiological analysis that highlighted the detection of Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli. Ninety samples of meat in total (15 of each minced beef, sausage, burger, shawarma, and hawawshi) were obtained from several markets in Aswan City, Egypt, and exposed to bacterial analysis and PCR methods. The fraud samples exhibited a higher overall bacterial count than pure bovine meat. P. aeruginosa and E. coli were identified in 41.1% and 30% of the examined samples, with a high occurrence rate in minced beef samples. All P. aeruginosa isolates examined by PCR carried the rpoB gene, and 70% and 40% showed positive lasB and exoS virulence genes. Meanwhile, E. coli isolates showed hylA, stx1, and stx2 virulence genes in 50%, 80%, and 20% of them. Furthermore, this investigation’s PCR technique detected fraudulence in chicken, camel, pig, and equine meat in 100% of the beef samples, with rates of 63.9%, 19.4%, 8.3%, and 13.9%, respectively. This research suggests that quality control labs and inspection services can swiftly ascertain the contamination or adulteration of various meat products using these detection techniques. Issues such as contamination during DNA extraction, the presence of inhibitors, and suboptimal PCR conditions can affect the accuracy of results and are considered limitations of PCR.